"Christmas shatters any idea that God is some kind of vengeful tyrant bent on smiting any who fail to live up to His expectations. The image of a harsh, punishing deity is contradicted when we discover that our God was incarnated in a baby in Bethlehem’s manger." Tony Campolo

You, Lord Jesus, born for us at Bethlehem, ask respect for every person, especially the small and the weak; you ask for an end to all forms of violence — to wars, oppression, and all attacks on life. In you, only in you, is humanity offered the chance to become "a new creation." Pope John Paul II in his Christmas 2000 address